U.S. patent application number 15/841103 was filed with the patent office on 2019-06-13 for controlling memory usage in a cache.
The applicant listed for this patent is salesforce.com, inc.. Invention is credited to Jayant Kumar, Gopi Krishna Mudumbai.
Application Number | 20190179755 15/841103 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 66696852 |
Filed Date | 2019-06-13 |
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United States Patent
Application |
20190179755 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Mudumbai; Gopi Krishna ; et
al. |
June 13, 2019 |
CONTROLLING MEMORY USAGE IN A CACHE
Abstract
Systems and methods for controlling cache usage are described
and include associating, by a server computing system, a tenant in
a multi-tenant environment with a cache cluster formed by a group
of cache instances; associating, by the server computing system, a
memory threshold and a burst memory threshold with the tenant;
enabling, by the server computing system, each of the cache
instances to collect metrics information based on the tenant
accessing the cache cluster, the metrics information used to
determine memory usage information and burst memory usage
information of the cache cluster by the tenant; and controlling, by
the server computing system, usage of the cache cluster by the
tenant based on comparing the memory usage information with the
memory threshold and comparing the burst memory usage information
with the burst memory threshold.
Inventors: |
Mudumbai; Gopi Krishna;
(Telangana, IN) ; Kumar; Jayant; (Telangana,
IN) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
salesforce.com, inc. |
San Francisco |
CA |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
66696852 |
Appl. No.: |
15/841103 |
Filed: |
December 13, 2017 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F 12/0808 20130101;
G06F 12/126 20130101; G06F 12/0831 20130101; G06F 12/128 20130101;
G06F 12/084 20130101; G06F 16/00 20190101; G06F 2212/621
20130101 |
International
Class: |
G06F 12/0831 20060101
G06F012/0831; G06F 12/0808 20060101 G06F012/0808; G06F 12/128
20060101 G06F012/128 |
Claims
1. A method comprising: associating, by a database system, a tenant
in a multi-tenant environment with a cache cluster formed by a
group of cache instances; associating, by the database system, a
memory threshold and a burst memory threshold with the tenant;
enabling, by the database system, each of the cache instances to
collect metrics information based on the tenant accessing the cache
cluster, the metrics information being used to determine memory
usage information and burst memory usage information of the cache
cluster by the tenant; and controlling, by the database system,
usage of the cache cluster by the tenant based on comparing the
memory usage information with the memory threshold and comparing
the burst memory usage information with the burst memory
threshold.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory usage information and
the burst memory usage information of the cache cluster by the
tenant are determined by aggregating the metrics information
collected by the group of cache instances in the cache cluster.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein accessing the cache cluster
comprises performing cache-write related operations to one or more
of the cache instances in the cache cluster.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein controlling the usage of the
cache cluster by the tenant based on comparing the memory usage
information with the memory threshold comprises performing eviction
operations when the memory usage information violates the memory
threshold.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the eviction operations are
performed until the memory usage information stops violating the
memory threshold.
6. The method of claim 5, wherein controlling the usage of the
cache cluster by the tenant based on comparing the burst memory
usage information with the burst memory threshold comprises pausing
the cache-write related operations associated with the tenant.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the cache-write related
operations are paused for a pause period.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein controlling the usage of the
cache cluster by the tenant based on comparing the burst memory
usage information with the burst memory threshold comprises
resuming the cache-write related operations associated with the
tenant based on expiration of the pause period or based on
determining that the burst memory usage information stops violating
the burst memory threshold.
9. The method of claim 8, further comprising: performing, by the
database system, the eviction operations on the cache cluster based
on an eviction policy.
10. A system comprising: one or more processors; and a
non-transitory computer readable medium storing a plurality of
instructions, which when executed, cause the one or more processors
of a first server computing system to: associate a tenant in a
multi-tenant environment with a cache cluster formed by a group of
cache instances; associate a memory threshold and a burst memory
threshold with the tenant; enable each of the cache instances to
collect metrics information based on the tenant accessing the cache
cluster, the metrics information being used to determine memory
usage information and burst memory usage information of the cache
cluster by the tenant; and control usage of the cache cluster by
the tenant based on comparing the memory usage information with the
memory threshold and comparing the burst memory usage information
with the burst memory threshold.
11. The system of claim 10, wherein the memory usage information
and the burst memory usage information of the cache cluster by the
tenant are determined by aggregating the metrics information
collected by the group of cache instances in the cache cluster.
12. The system of claim 11, wherein accessing the cache cluster
comprises performing cache-write related operations to one or more
of the cache instances in the cache cluster.
13. The system of claim 12, wherein controlling the usage of the
cache cluster by the tenant based on comparing the memory usage
information with the memory threshold comprises performing eviction
operations when the memory usage information violates the memory
threshold.
14. The system of claim 13, wherein the eviction operations are
performed until the memory usage information stops violating the
memory threshold.
15. The system of claim 14, wherein controlling the usage of the
cache cluster by the tenant based on comparing the burst memory
usage information with the burst memory threshold comprises pausing
the cache-write related operations associated with the tenant.
16. The system of claim 15, wherein the cache-write related
operations are paused for a pause period.
17. The system of claim 16, wherein controlling the usage of the
cache cluster by the tenant based on comparing the burst memory
usage information with the burst memory threshold comprises
resuming cache-write related operations associated with the tenant
based on expiration of the pause period or based on determining
that the burst memory usage information stops violating the burst
memory threshold.
18. The system of claim 17, further comprising instructions to
perform the eviction operations on the cache cluster based on an
eviction policy.
19. A computer program product comprising computer-readable program
code to be executed by one or more processors when retrieved from a
non-transitory computer-readable medium, the program code including
instructions to: associate a tenant in a multi-tenant environment
with a cache cluster formed by a group of cache instances;
associate a memory threshold and a burst memory threshold with the
tenant; enable each of the cache instances to collect metrics
information based on the tenant accessing the cache cluster, the
metrics information being used to determine memory usage
information and burst memory usage information of the cache cluster
by the tenant; and control usage of the cache cluster by the tenant
based on comparing the memory usage information with the memory
threshold and comparing the burst memory usage information with the
burst memory threshold.
20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the memory
usage information and the burst memory usage information of the
cache cluster by the tenant are determined by aggregating the
metrics information collected by the group of cache instances in
the cache cluster.
21. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein accessing the
cache cluster comprises performing cache-write related operations
to one or more of the cache instances in the cache cluster.
22. The computer program product of claim 21, wherein controlling
the usage of the cache cluster by the tenant based on comparing the
memory usage information with the memory threshold comprises
performing eviction operations when the memory usage information
violates the memory threshold.
23. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the eviction
operations are performed until the memory usage information stops
violating the memory threshold.
24. The computer program product of claim 23, wherein controlling
the usage of the cache cluster by the tenant based on comparing the
burst memory usage information with the burst memory threshold
comprises pausing the cache-write related operations associated
with the tenant.
25. The computer program product of claim 24, wherein the
cache-write related operations are paused for a pause period.
26. The computer program product of claim 25, wherein controlling
the usage of the cache cluster by the tenant based on comparing the
burst memory usage information with the burst memory threshold
comprises resuming cache-write related operations associated with
the tenant based on expiration of the pause period or based on
determining that the burst memory usage information stops violating
the burst memory threshold.
27. The computer program product of claim 26, further comprising
instructions to perform the eviction operations on the cache
cluster based on an eviction policy.
Description
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
[0001] A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains
material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright
owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of
the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the
Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise
reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
TECHNICAL FIELD
[0002] The present disclosure relates generally to data processing
and more specifically relates to caching associated with a
multi-tenant environment.
BACKGROUND
[0003] The subject matter discussed in the background section
should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its
mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned
in the background section or associated with the subject matter of
the background section should not be assumed to have been
previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the
background section merely represents different approaches, which in
and of themselves may also be inventions.
[0004] In general, caching may improve performance. Careful
management of the content of the cache is important to maintain its
effectiveness. When caching is used in a multi-tenant environment,
the management of the cache becomes more complex because each of
the tenants may have different management requirements.
BRIEF SUMMARY
[0005] For some embodiments, systems and methods for controlling
memory usage in a cache may include associating, by a server
computing system, a tenant in a multi-tenant environment with a
cache cluster formed by a group of cache instances; associating, by
the server computing system, a memory threshold and a burst memory
threshold with the tenant; enabling, by the server computing
system, each of the cache instances to collect metrics information
based on the tenant accessing the cache cluster, the metrics
information used to determine memory usage information and burst
memory usage information of the cache by the tenant; and
controlling, by the server computing system, usage of the cache by
the tenant based on comparing the memory usage information with the
memory threshold and comparing the burst memory usage information
with the burst memory threshold. Other aspects and advantages of
the present invention can be seen on review of the drawings, the
detailed description and the claims, which follow.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0006] The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and
serve only to provide examples of possible structures and process
steps for the disclosed techniques. These drawings in no way limit
any changes in form and detail that may be made to embodiments by
one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope
of the disclosure.
[0007] FIG. 1 shows a diagram of an example computing system that
may be used with some embodiments.
[0008] FIG. 2A shows a diagram of an example network environment
that may be used with some embodiments.
[0009] FIG. 2B shows a diagram of an example of a network
environment that may include a cache system, in accordance with
some embodiments.
[0010] FIG. 3 shows a diagram of an example cache cluster, in
accordance with some embodiments.
[0011] FIG. 4A and FIG. 4B show an example diagram of a cache
instance and metering module associated with the cache instance, in
accordance with some embodiments.
[0012] FIG. 5 shows a diagram of example a cache client and a
message bus, in accordance with some embodiments.
[0013] FIG. 6 shows a diagram of a cache system that may be used
with a multi-tenant environment, in accordance with some
embodiments.
[0014] FIG. 7 is an example flowchart that shows execution of cache
management system in a multi-tenant environment, in accordance with
some embodiments.
[0015] FIG. 8A shows a system diagram illustrating architectural
components of an applicable environment, in accordance with some
embodiments.
[0016] FIG. 8B shows a system diagram further illustrating
architectural components of an applicable environment, in
accordance with some embodiments.
[0017] FIG. 9 shows a system diagram illustrating the architecture
of a multi-tenant database environment, in accordance with some
embodiments.
[0018] FIG. 10 shows a system diagram further illustrating the
architecture of a multi-tenant database environment, in accordance
with some embodiments.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0019] Systems and methods for controlling cache resources when
cache instances are used for tenants in a multi-tenant environment
are disclosed. Each tenant may be associated with a burst memory
threshold and a memory threshold. Metrics information may be
collected by each cache instance associated with the tenant.
Aggregated metrics information may be generated to enable
performing controlling of the cache resources. Evictions may be
performed when the memory threshold is violated. Pausing of
cache-write related operations by the tenant may occur when the
burst memory threshold is violated.
[0020] The systems and methods associated with managing cache
resources by tenants using cache instances will be described with
reference to example embodiments. These examples are being provided
solely to add context and aid in the understanding of the present
disclosure. It will thus be apparent to one skilled in the art that
the techniques described herein may be practiced without some or
all of these specific details. In other instances, well known
process steps have not been described in detail in order to avoid
unnecessarily obscuring the present disclosure. Other applications
are possible, such that the following examples should not be taken
as definitive or limiting either in scope or setting.
[0021] In the following detailed description, references are made
to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of the description
and in which are shown, by way of illustration, specific
embodiments. Although these embodiments are described in sufficient
detail to enable one skilled in the art to practice the disclosure,
it is understood that these examples are not limiting, such that
other embodiments may be used and changes may be made without
departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure.
[0022] As used herein, the term "multi-tenant database system"
refers to those systems in which various elements of hardware and
software of the database system may be shared by one or more
customers. For example, a given application server may
simultaneously process requests for a great number of customers,
and a given database table may store rows for a potentially much
greater number of customers.
[0023] The described subject matter may be implemented in the
context of any computer-implemented system, such as a
software-based system, a database system, a multi-tenant
environment, or the like. Moreover, the described subject matter
may be implemented in connection with two or more separate and
distinct computer-implemented systems that cooperate and
communicate with one another. One or more embodiments may be
implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus,
a system, a device, a method, a computer readable medium such as a
computer readable storage medium containing computer readable
instructions or computer program code, or as a computer program
product comprising a computer usable medium having a computer
readable program code embodied therein.
[0024] The disclosed embodiments may include a method for
controlling memory usage in a cache and may include associating, by
a server computing system, a tenant in a multi-tenant environment
with a cache formed by a group of cache instances in a cache
cluster; associating, by the server computing system, a memory
threshold and a burst memory threshold with the tenant; enabling,
by the server computing system, each of the cache instances to
collect metrics information based on the tenant accessing the
cache, the metrics information used to determine memory usage
information and burst memory usage information of the cache by the
tenant; and controlling, by the server computing system, usage of
the cache by the tenant based on comparing the memory usage
information with the memory threshold and comparing the burst
memory usage information with the burst memory threshold.
[0025] The disclosed embodiments may include a system for
controlling memory usage in a cache and may include one or more
processors; and a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a
plurality of instructions, which when executed, cause the one or
more processors of a server computing to associate a tenant in a
multi-tenant environment with a cache formed by a group of cache
instances in a cache cluster; associate a memory threshold and a
burst memory threshold with the tenant; enable each of the cache
instances to collect metrics information based on the tenant
accessing the cache, the metrics information used to determine
memory usage information and burst memory usage information of the
cache by the tenant; and control usage of the cache by the tenant
based on comparing the memory usage information with the memory
threshold and comparing the burst memory usage information with the
burst memory threshold.
[0026] The disclosed embodiments may include a computer program
product comprising computer-readable program code to be executed by
one or more processors of a server computing system when retrieved
from a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the program code
including instructions to associate a tenant in a multi-tenant
environment with a cache formed by a group of cache instances in a
cache cluster; associate a memory threshold and a burst memory
threshold with the tenant; enable each of the cache instances to
collect metrics information based on the tenant accessing the
cache, the metrics information used to determine memory usage
information and burst memory usage information of the cache by the
tenant; and control usage of the cache by the tenant based on
comparing the memory usage information with the memory threshold
and comparing the burst memory usage information with the burst
memory threshold.
[0027] While one or more implementations and techniques are
described with reference to an embodiment relating to a cache
implemented in a system having an application server providing a
front end for an on-demand database service capable of supporting
multiple tenants, the one or more implementations and techniques
are not limited to multi-tenant databases nor deployment on
application servers. Embodiments may be practiced using other
database architectures, i.e., ORACLE.RTM., DB2.RTM. by IBM and the
like without departing from the scope of the embodiments
claimed.
[0028] Any of the above embodiments may be used alone or together
with one another in any combination. The one or more
implementations encompassed within this specification may also
include embodiments that are only partially mentioned or alluded to
or are not mentioned or alluded to at all in this brief summary or
in the abstract. Although various embodiments may have been
motivated by various deficiencies with the prior art, which may be
discussed or alluded to in one or more places in the specification,
the embodiments do not necessarily address any of these
deficiencies. In other words, different embodiments may address
different deficiencies that may be discussed in the specification.
Some embodiments may only partially address some deficiencies or
just one deficiency that may be discussed in the specification, and
some embodiments may not address any of these deficiencies.
[0029] The described subject matter may be implemented in the
context of any computer-implemented system, such as a
software-based system, a database system, a multi-tenant
environment, or the like. Moreover, the described subject matter
may be implemented in connection with two or more separate and
distinct computer-implemented systems that cooperate and
communicate with one another. One or more implementations may be
implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus,
a system, a device, a method, a computer readable medium such as a
computer readable storage medium containing computer readable
instructions or computer program code, or as a computer program
product comprising a computer usable medium having a computer
readable program code embodied therein.
[0030] FIG. 1 is a diagram of an example computing system that may
be used with some embodiments of the present invention. The
computing system 102 may be used by a user to log into a server
computing system to cause the server computing system to perform
operations on behalf of the user. For example, the user may use a
web browser to access web services provided by the server computing
system. For some embodiments, the server computing system may be
associated with a multi-tenant database environment. For example,
the multi-tenant database environment may be associated with the
services provided by Salesforce.com.RTM..
[0031] The computing system 102 is only one example of a suitable
computing system, such as a mobile computing system, and is not
intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or
functionality of the design. Neither should the computing system
102 be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating
to any one or combination of components illustrated. The design is
operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose
computing systems. Examples of well-known computing systems,
environments, and/or configurations that may be suitable for use
with the design include, but are not limited to, personal
computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices,
multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top
boxes, programmable consumer electronics, mini-computers, mainframe
computers, distributed computing environments that include any of
the above systems or devices, and the like. For example, the
computing system 102 may be implemented as a mobile computing
system such as one that is configured to run with an operating
system (e.g., iOS) developed by Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. or
an operating system (e.g., Android) that is developed by Google
Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.
[0032] Some embodiments of the present invention may be described
in the general context of computing system executable instructions,
such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally,
program modules include routines, programs, objects, components,
data structures, etc. that performs particular tasks or implement
particular abstract data types. Those skilled in the art can
implement the description and/or figures herein as
computer-executable instructions, which can be embodied on any form
of computing machine program product discussed below.
[0033] Some embodiments of the present invention may also be
practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are
performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a
communications network. In a distributed computing environment,
program modules may be located in both local and remote computer
storage media including memory storage devices.
[0034] Referring to FIG. 1, the computing system 102 may include,
but are not limited to, a processing unit 120 having one or more
processing cores, a system memory 130, and a system bus 121 that
couples various system components including the system memory 130
to the processing unit 120. The system bus 121 may be any of
several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory
controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a
variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not
limitation, such architectures include Industry Standard
Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus,
Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association
(VESA) locale bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus
also known as Mezzanine bus.
[0035] The computing system 102 typically includes a variety of
computer program product. Computer program product can be any
available media that can be accessed by computing system 102 and
includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and
non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation,
computer program product may store information such as computer
readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other
data. Computer storage media include, but are not limited to, RAM,
ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM,
digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage,
magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other
magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to
store the desired information and which can be accessed by
computing system 102. Communication media typically embodies
computer readable instructions, data structures, or program
modules.
[0036] The system memory 130 may include computer storage media in
the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only
memory (ROM) 131 and random access memory (RAM) 132. A basic
input/output system (BIOS) 133, containing the basic routines that
help to transfer information between elements within computing
system 102, such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM
131. RAM 132 typically contains data and/or program modules that
are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by
processing unit 120. By way of example, and not limitation, FIG. 1
also illustrates operating system 134, application programs 135,
other program modules 136, and program data 137.
[0037] The computing system 102 may also include other
removable/non-removable volatile/nonvolatile computer storage
media. By way of example only, FIG. 1 also illustrates a hard disk
drive 141 that reads from or writes to non-removable, nonvolatile
magnetic media, a magnetic disk drive 151 that reads from or writes
to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk 152, and an optical disk
drive 155 that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile
optical disk 156 such as, for example, a CD ROM or other optical
media. Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer
storage media that can be used in the exemplary operating
environment include, but are not limited to, USB drives and
devices, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital
versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state
ROM, and the like. The hard disk drive 141 is typically connected
to the system bus 121 through a non-removable memory interface such
as interface 140, and magnetic disk drive 151 and optical disk
drive 155 are typically connected to the system bus 121 by a
removable memory interface, such as interface 150.
[0038] The drives and their associated computer storage media
discussed above and illustrated in FIG. 1, provide storage of
computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules
and other data for the computing system 102. In FIG. 1, for
example, hard disk drive 141 is illustrated as storing operating
system 144, application programs 145, other program modules 146,
and program data 147. Note that these components can either be the
same as or different from operating system 134, application
programs 135, other program modules 136, and program data 137. The
operating system 144, the application programs 145, the other
program modules 146, and the program data 147 are given different
numeric identification here to illustrate that, at a minimum, they
are different copies.
[0039] A user may enter commands and information into the computing
system 102 through input devices such as a keyboard 162, a
microphone 163, and a pointing device 161, such as a mouse,
trackball or touch pad or touch screen. Other input devices (not
shown) may include a joystick, game pad, scanner, or the like.
These and other input devices are often connected to the processing
unit 120 through a user input interface 160 that is coupled with
the system bus 121, but may be connected by other interface and bus
structures, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal
serial bus (USB). A monitor 191 or other type of display device is
also connected to the system bus 121 via an interface, such as a
video interface 190. In addition to the monitor, computers may also
include other peripheral output devices such as speakers 197 and
printer 196, which may be connected through an output peripheral
interface 190.
[0040] The computing system 102 may operate in a networked
environment using logical connections to one or more remote
computers, such as a remote computer 180. The remote computer 180
may be a personal computer, a hand-held device, a server, a router,
a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and
typically includes many or all of the elements described above
relative to the computing system 102. The logical connections
depicted in
[0041] FIG. 1 includes a local area network (LAN) 171 and a wide
area network (WAN) 173, but may also include other networks. Such
networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide
computer networks, intranets and the Internet.
[0042] When used in a LAN networking environment, the computing
system 102 may be connected to the LAN 171 through a network
interface or adapter 170. When used in a WAN networking
environment, the computing system 102 typically includes a modem
172 or other means for establishing communications over the WAN
173, such as the Internet. The modem 172, which may be internal or
external, may be connected to the system bus 121 via the user-input
interface 160, or other appropriate mechanism. In a networked
environment, program modules depicted relative to the computing
system 102, or portions thereof, may be stored in a remote memory
storage device. By way of example, and not limitation, FIG. 1
illustrates remote application programs 185 as residing on remote
computer 180. It will be appreciated that the network connections
shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a
communications link between the computers may be used.
[0043] It should be noted that some embodiments of the present
invention may be carried out on a computing system such as that
described with respect to FIG. 1. However, some embodiments of the
present invention may be carried out on a server, a computer
devoted to message handling, handheld devices, or on a distributed
system in which different portions of the present design may be
carried out on different parts of the distributed computing
system.
[0044] Another device that may be coupled with the system bus 121
is a power supply such as a battery or a Direct Current (DC) power
supply) and Alternating Current (AC) adapter circuit. The DC power
supply may be a battery, a fuel cell, or similar DC power source
needs to be recharged on a periodic basis. The communication module
(or modem) 172 may employ a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) to
establish a wireless communication channel. The communication
module 172 may implement a wireless networking standard such as
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11
standard, IEEE std. 802.11-1999, published by IEEE in 1999.
[0045] Examples of mobile computing systems may be a laptop
computer, a tablet computer, a Netbook, a smart phone, a personal
digital assistant, or other similar device with on board processing
power and wireless communications ability that is powered by a
Direct Current (DC) power source that supplies DC voltage to the
mobile computing system and that is solely within the mobile
computing system and needs to be recharged on a periodic basis,
such as a fuel cell or a battery.
[0046] FIG. 2A shows a diagram of an example network environment
that may be used with some embodiments of the present invention.
Network environment 200 includes computing systems 290 and 291. One
or more of the computing systems 290 and 291 may be a mobile
computing system. The computing systems 290 and 291 may be
connected to the network 250 via a cellular connection or via a
Wi-Fi router (not shown). The network 250 may be the Internet. The
computing systems 290 and 291 may be coupled with server computing
systems 255 via the network 250. Each of the computing systems 290
and 291 may include an application module such as module 208 or
214. For example, a user may use the computing system 290 and the
application module 208 to connect to and communicate with the
server computing system 255 and log into application 257 (e.g., a
Salesforce.com.RTM. application). The server computing system 255
may be a web server configured to accept and respond to Hypertext
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests. A client (e.g., a browser) from
the computing system 290 or 291 may open a connection to the server
computing system 255 and sends a request. The server computing
system 255 may process the request and generate a response. It is
possible that the server computing system 255 may receive many
requests concurrently, and processing and responding to those
requests may affect the overall performance of the server computing
system 255.
[0047] FIG. 2B shows a diagram of an example of a network
environment that may include a cache system, in accordance with
some embodiments. Network environment 201 may be similar to the
network environment 200 of FIG. 2A except with the addition of the
cache system 280. The cache system 280 may be associated with the
server computing system (e.g., web server) 255. The cache system
280 may be implemented using a combination of hardware and
software. The cache system 280 may include memory 285 (also
referred to as a cache) configured to store data that is frequently
requested from the server computing system 255. For example, when a
request for data is received, and the data is already stored in the
cache 285, the data may be retrieved from the cache 285. Different
policies may be used to manage the content of the cache 285. For
example, when the cache 285 is full, an eviction policy may be
applied to the content to remove some existing data to create space
for new data. The eviction policy may be based on, for example,
least recently used (LRU) or least frequently used (LFU). Although
the diagram 201 shows one cache system 280 and one server computing
system 255, the cache system 280 may span over more than one
computing system to provide caching services to multiple server
computing systems.
[0048] FIG. 3 shows a diagram of an example cache cluster, in
accordance with some embodiments. The cache system 280 (shown in
FIG. 2B) may include one or more cache clusters including, for
example, cache cluster 305. The cache cluster 305 in diagram 300
may include one or more cache instances 310A-310N. The one or more
cache instances 310A-310N may work together as one logical cache.
For example, the cache 285 (shown in FIG. 2B) may be a logical
cache.
[0049] The one or more cache instances 310A-310N may be configured
to respond to requests from the computing systems 290 and 291
(shown in FIG. 2B). The one or more cache instances 310A-310N may
be configured to receive data from the server computing system 255
(shown in FIG. 2B). Each of the cache instances 310A-310N may
include a portion of the content of the logical cache.
[0050] For some embodiments, in a multi-tenant environment, a
tenant may be associated with a logical cache formed by a group of
cache instances. A tenant may be an organization, a set of
organizations, a feature, etc. A tenant may be a uniquely
identifiable user of a cache. This may enable the cache content
associated with a tenant to be distributed among the multiple cache
instances, thus improving cache performance when multiple data
update requests are generated by the tenant. For example, the
computing systems 290 and 291 (shown in FIG. 2B) may be associated
with a tenant. The cache cluster 305 may define the policies which
are applied to all the cache instances 310A-310N. For example, the
policies may include specifying the portion of the cache content
that a cache instance is responsible for, among others. When a
request is received from the tenant, the request may be sent to a
particular cache instance based on the cache content that the cache
instance is responsible for. If there is a cache hit, the request
may be processed by the cache instance. If there is a cache miss,
the request may be forwarded to the server computing system 255
(shown in FIG. 2B) to process the request.
[0051] FIG. 4 shows example diagrams of a cache instance and
metering module associated with cache instances in a cache cluster,
in accordance with some embodiments. Diagram 400 includes a cache
instance 405 which may include a tenant-ID extractor 410, command
module 415, metrics information 420 and memory 425. The tenant-ID
extractor 410 may be configured to extract the tenant ID of the
tenant associated with the cache instance 405. As described with
FIG. 3, in a multi-tenant environment, a tenant may be associated
with a group of cache instances. Further, a cache instance may be
configured to store data associated with one or more tenants in
memory 425.
[0052] A unique cache key may be associated with a content of the
memory 425. The unique cache key may include a tenant ID. For
example, the cache key may have the following format
<TenantID><Key> where the tenant ID is a prefix of the
cache key. The tenant ID may also be obtained by other means such
as, for example, using one connection per tenant so that the tenant
ID may need to be extracted only once when the connection is
established. The cache key, along with other elements, may be used
to form an identifier that is associated with a value stored in a
cache. The same identifier may be used to retrieve the same value
from the memory 425.
[0053] For some embodiments, command metadata may be included at
the end of a command. For example, the command may be related to
cache write operations on behalf of a specific tenant. The command
metadata may be used to provide the tenant ID instead of using a
prefix of the cache key. The tenant ID may be part of the
tenant-related information that can be included in the command
metadata.
[0054] The command module 415 may include eviction command and get
metrics information command. The eviction command may include
operations to evict certain content of the cache that the cache
instance 405 is responsible for per tenant basis. In order to
support the eviction operations, the cache instance 405 is
configured to maintain an index of keys per tenant. The eviction
strategy may dictate the internal data structure/sort order used to
store the key index. The index may be stored in memory. The index
may be constantly updated per tenant via the synchronous
interceptor events (e.g., set/put/delete/expire). A sort order may
be selected based on the eviction strategy (e.g., LRU/LFU).
[0055] For some embodiments, the eviction command may have the
following format: Evict-Tenant (Tenant-ID, Memory-size, MaxTime).
The eviction command may use the key index which is already sorted
in the required order and keeps deleting the key-value pairs from
the cache until the amount of deleted memory reaches the command
parameter "Memory-size" or when the time spent processing the
eviction command reaches the command parameter "MaxTime." The
"MaxTime" parameter may help ensuring that the eviction process
does not block incoming calls (e.g., cache write operations),
especially for single threaded cache implementations. When either
of the "Memory-size" and "MaxTime" is met, the processing of the
eviction command may stop.
[0056] The get-metrics information command may include operations
to collect metrics information 420 for the tenant associated with
the cache instance 405. The metrics information 420 may include
usage metrics such as, for example, memory used or number of
operations which needs to be measured per tenant. For some
embodiments, the collection of the metrics information 420 may be
performed using synchronous interceptor callbacks on cache-write
related operations (e.g., set, update, increment, and decrement),
cache evictions and updates. The get-metrics operations may get the
tenant ID using either the cache key prefix or the command metadata
depending on the implementation.
[0057] For some embodiments, the get-metrics operations may collect
per-tenant metrics information 420 based on the incoming key per
cache instance. The metrics information may be used to determine an
amount of memory used per tenant from the memory 425 (see Table 1
below). The metrics information may include information about time
spent per tenant in processing cache related commands. For example,
on an update of a key, the synchronous interceptor may update the
amount of memory used per tenant with the difference in the value
size before and after the update. In the case of an eviction
interceptor, the amount of memory used by a tenant may be reduced
after the eviction operations.
[0058] A list of tenants associated with a cache instance may be
maintained. The list of tenants may be updated periodically when
the amount of memory associated with a tenant is reduced to zero so
that the appropriate tenant ID can be removed from the list. Table
1 below shows an example list of tenants implemented using a hash
table.
TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Tenant ID (hash table) Memory Usage Tenant 1
Xxx bytes Tenant 2 Yyy bytes Tenant n Zzz bytes
[0059] The metering module 450 may be associated with a cache
cluster. The metering module 450 may be configured to periodically
pull or receive the metrics information 420 from the cache instance
405 associated with the cache cluster and computes the necessary
aggregation with other cache instances. For some embodiments, the
metering module 450 may be configured to collect the metrics
information at the tenant level based on incoming cache key per
cache instance.
[0060] When the cache cluster 305 includes multiple cache
instances, each of the cache instances in the cache cluster may be
configured to transmit its metrics information to the metering
module 450. For some embodiments, the metering module 450 may be
configured to maintain information about the tenants associated
with the cache cluster 305 and the metrics information associated
with each tenant.
[0061] The metering module 450 may also be configured to maintain
information about a memory threshold and a burst memory threshold
per tenant. The memory threshold may correspond to a maximum amount
of memory that is set for a tenant. This may be a steady state
maximum memory. The burst memory threshold may correspond to a
maximum burst memory set for the tenant. The burst memory threshold
may be a temporary and acceptable peak memory usage but may not be
a steady state memory usage. For example, when the memory usage
reaches the memory threshold, the burst memory threshold may be the
max memory that a tenant can use before pausing its operation.
[0062] Both the memory threshold and the burst memory threshold are
configurable settings provisioned by a system administrator. The
burst memory threshold is usually greater than the memory
threshold. For example, the burst memory threshold may be based on
a certain percentage (e.g., 50%) greater than the memory threshold.
Table 2 below shows example tenant memory usage information. Column
4 shows a total current memory usage per tenant. Column 5 shows a
list of current memory usage by each tenant broken down to each
cache instance in a cluster. C1 corresponds to a first cache
instance, and C2 corresponds to a second cache instance, etc. The
information in the columns 4 and 5 may be periodically updated. For
example, each cache instance may be configured to periodically
transmit the usage information to the metering module 450. The
metering module 450 may also be configured to collect information
about time spent to process cache-write related operations per
tenant.
TABLE-US-00002 TABLE 2 Burst- Total Current List Tenant Memory
Memory Memory <CacheInstanceID: ID Threshold Threshold Usage
Memory-Usage> Tenant 1 GB 1.5 GB 3 GB <C1: 0.2 GB, 1 C2: 0.41
GB, . . . > Tenant 1.5 GB 2.25 GB 1.8 GB <C1: 0.11 GB, 2 C2:
0.131 GB, . . . > Tenant .2 GB .3 GB .15 GB <C1: 0.32 GB, 3
C2: 0.123 GB, . . . > Tenant 2 GB 3.0 GB 1.4 GB <C1: 0.02 GB,
n C2: 0.183 GB, . . . >
[0063] The metering module 450 may be configured to monitor and
enforce the memory threshold and the burst memory threshold shown
in Table 2 for each tenant. For example, the metering module 450
may use the memory threshold and the memory usage information to
determine a list of tenant that are using more memory than set by
the system administrator. A percentage of the memory used over the
memory threshold may be determined, and the list of tenants may be
ordered based on the percentage. For example, the list may show
that a tenant at the top is using 25% more memory than the memory
threshold, a next tenant is using 10% more, etc.
[0064] For each tenant, a memory threshold per cache instance may
be determined using the memory threshold for the tenant. This is
shown in the following Formula 1:
Memory Threshold Per Cache Instance=Memory Threshold for a
tenant/Number of cache instances associated with the tenant Formula
1
The determination of the memory threshold per cache instance of
formula 1 assumes a uniform distribution. However, the actual
memory usage may not be uniform across all the cache instances. For
some embodiments, an enhanced memory threshold per cache instance
may be determined using the result of the above Formula 1. This is
shown in the following Formula 2:
Enhanced Memory Threshold Per Cache Instance=Memory Threshold Per
Cache Instance+(aggregate of memory differences of cache instances
with current memory usage less than the memory threshold per cache
instance)/(number of cache instances with current memory usage more
than the memory threshold setting per cache instance) Formula 2
When the current memory usage of a tenant in a cache instance
violates or exceeds the enhanced memory threshold per cache
instance, eviction may occur by using the following example
eviction command: Call Evict_tenant (TenantID, Current Memory Usage
in a Cache Instance--Enhanced Memory Threshold Per Cache Instance).
The eviction may be applied to each of the cache instances where
the memory usage violates or exceeds the enhanced memory threshold.
This provides memory usage control at the cache instance level.
[0065] The metering module 450 may be configured to monitor a burst
memory usage by a tenant and compare that with the burst memory
threshold (as shown in column 3 of Table 2). The burst memory usage
may correspond to a temporary memory usage that exceeds a normal
steady state memory usage. For some embodiments, the metering
module 450 may generate a list of tenants whose burst memory usage
exceeds the burst memory threshold using the per tenant
cluster-wide aggregated metrics information. For each tenant on
this list, the metering module 450 may cause the tenant to pause
cache-write related operations for a certain length of time. This
provides control at the ingress to the cache at the cache instance
level. For example, the metering module 450 may generate a pause
message using the format {tenantID, PAUSE TENANT WRITE, pause
period} to request a tenant to pause cache-write related operations
for up to the pause period. For some embodiments, after the burst
memory usage stops violating (e.g., is at or below) the burst
memory threshold, the metering module 450 may be configured to
clear the list of tenants whose burst memory usage violated (e.g.,
exceeded) the burst memory threshold. For each tenant on the list,
the metering module 450 may cause the tenant to resume their
cache-write related operations. For example, the metering module
450 may generate a resume message using the format {tenantID,
RESUME TENANT WRITE} to indicate that cache-write related
operations can be resumed.
[0066] FIG. 5 shows a diagram of an example cache client and a
message bus, in accordance with some embodiments. In diagram 500,
cache client 505 may be configured to monitor for events on message
bus 508 and perform operations on a per tenant basis. For example,
the cache client 505 may listen for back pressure signals from the
message bus 508. Back pressure signals may include signals that
cause cache-write related operations to be paused. The cache client
505 may maintain a paused tenants hash table 510 configured to
include a list of tenants and their current state. For example, the
list of tenants may be ordered based on the tenant ID, and the
current state may be pause and the pause period. Although not
shown, there may also be a start time for each pause period to
determine the expiration of the pause period. Based on expiration
of the pause period, the tenant may be removed from the list. If a
tenant ID of a tenant is not on the list of the paused tenants hash
table 510, it may be understood that there no pausing or back
pressure needs to be applied to that tenant. For some embodiments,
the pause period may be determined individually for each tenant.
Thus, it may be possible for two tenants to be associated with two
different pause periods.
[0067] For some embodiments, the cache client 505 may be configured
to receive signals from the metering module 450 (shown in FIG. 4)
to update the paused tenants hash table 510. For example, after the
metering module 450 generate the pause message {tenantID, PAUSE
TENANT WRITE, pause period}, that pause message may be sent to the
message bus 508 and received by the cache client 505. Based on the
tenantID and the pause period parameters included in the message,
the cache client 505 may then update the paused tenants hash table
510 to include the tenant ID and the pause period. Similarly, after
the metering module 450 generate the resume message {tenantID,
RESUME TENANT WRITE}, that resume message may be sent to the
message bus 508 and received by the cache client 505. Based on the
tenantID included in the message, the cache client 505 may then
update the paused tenants hash table 510 to remove the tenant ID.
The cache client 505 may be configured to receive cache write
request 555 from a tenant and process the cache write request 555
using the paused tenants hash table 508.
[0068] FIG. 6 shows a diagram of a cache system that may be used
with a multi-tenant environment, in accordance with some
embodiments. Diagram 600 is shown with components of a cache system
similar to the cache system 280 shown in FIG. 2B. Cache system 280
may include multiple cache clients 605A-605N. Each of the cache
clients may be configured to interact with a set of tenants.
Multiple cache write requests 650 may be received by the cache
clients 605A-605N. A cache client may store information about
whether a tenant is in a pause state based on back pressure
information received from the message bus 508. The back pressure
information may be provided by the metering module 655 based on how
much memory is being used by the cache instances 615A-615N
associated with that tenant.
[0069] The back pressure information may include information to
pause the cache write operations and information to resume the
cache write operations. If a cache write request is received from a
tenant who is in a pause state, the cache write request may be
dropped. Further, if a tenant is in a pause state, the cache client
505 may verify a pause period and a corresponding pause period
start time to determine if the pause period has expired for that
tenant. If the pause period has not expired, the cache write
request may be dropped. If the pause period has expired or if the
tenant does not exist on the list, the cache write request may be
allowed to proceed. For some embodiments, the metering module 655
may be configured to transmit the back pressure signals directly to
the cache clients 605A-605N instead of to the message bus 508. Line
690 is shown to indicate that a cache client may directly
communicate with a cache instance for cache operation.
[0070] FIG. 7 is an example flowchart that shows execution of cache
management system in a multi-tenant environment, in accordance with
some embodiments. Flow diagram 700 may be used to manage a cache in
a multi-tenants environment. The flow diagram may start at block
705. At block 710, a group of cache instances in a cache cluster
may be associated with a tenant. At block 715, a memory threshold
and a burst memory threshold may be associated with the tenant. The
memory threshold may correspond to a maximum amount of memory
configured for the tenant, and the burst memory threshold may
correspond to a maximum burst memory configured for the tenant.
[0071] At block 720, eviction operations may be performed using an
eviction policy (e.g., LRU/LFU). As described with FIG. 4, the
eviction may be performed by using the Evict command of the command
module 415.
[0072] At block 725, each of the cache instances may be configured
to get metrics information based on the usage by the tenant. As
described with FIG. 4, a Get-Metrics command may be used to get the
metrics information. The metrics information may include an amount
of memory used by the tenant for each cache instance, as shown in
column 2 of Table 1 above. The metrics information may also be used
to determine the burst memory usage by the tenant at cache cluster
level.
[0073] At block 730, the memory usage information may be used to
determine if it exceeds the memory usage threshold for the tenant.
If the memory usage threshold is exceeded, eviction operations may
be performed to reduce the memory usage. Eviction may be performed
by the metering module 450 described with FIG. 4 using, for
example, the command Evict (TenantID, Memory) where "Memory" is a
difference between current memory usage and the memory threshold).
Eviction may be performed using batch processing.
[0074] At block 735, the metering module 450 may use the metrics
information to determine the burst memory associated with the
tenant. This may be performed by aggregating the metrics
information at a cluster level. The metering module 450 may then
determine whether the burst memory exceeds the burst memory
threshold set for the tenant. If the burst memory threshold is
exceeded, cache-write related operations associated with the tenant
may be paused. As described with FIG. 6, the metering module 450
may generate and send a pause message to the message bus 508, and
an appropriate cache client may use the pause message to pause
cache-write related operations. Pausing may include placing the
tenant in a pause state. When the tenant is in the pause state,
cache-write related operations received from the tenant are dropped
and not forwarded to the appropriate cache instance. The pause
message may include a pause period.
[0075] At block 740, the metering module 450 may generate and send
a resume message to the message bus 508. This may be based on the
metering module 450 reviewing the list of tenants whose burst
memory previously exceeds their burst memory thresholds but are now
at or below the burst memory thresholds. Based on receiving the
resume message from the message bus 508, the cache client may
remove the tenant from the pause state and subsequent cache write
operations associated with the tenant may be forwarded to the
appropriate cache instance for processing. The flow diagram may
stop at block 745. As may be noted from the flow diagram 700,
enforcing the memory threshold and the burst memory threshold may
be cooperatively performed at the cache instance, by the metering
module and by the cache client.
[0076] FIG. 8A shows a system diagram 800 illustrating
architectural components of an on-demand service environment, in
accordance with some embodiments. A client machine located in the
cloud 804 (or Internet) may communicate with the on-demand service
environment via one or more edge routers 808 and 812. The edge
routers may communicate with one or more core switches 820 and 824
via firewall 816. The core switches may communicate with a load
balancer 828, which may distribute server load over different pods,
such as the pods 840 and 844. The pods 840 and 844, which may each
include one or more servers and/or other computing resources, may
perform data processing and other operations used to provide
on-demand Services. Communication with the pods may be conducted
via pod switches 832 and 836. Components of the on-demand service
environment may communicate with a database storage system 856 via
a database firewall 848 and a database switch 852.
[0077] As shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, accessing an on-demand service
environment may involve communications transmitted among a variety
of different hardware and/or software components. Further, the
on-demand service environment 800 is a simplified representation of
an actual on-demand service environment. For example, while only
one or two devices of each type are shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, some
embodiments of an on-demand service environment may include
anywhere from one to many devices of each type. Also, the on-demand
service environment need not include each device shown in FIGS. 8A
and 8B, or may include additional devices not shown in FIGS. 8A and
8B.
[0078] Moreover, one or more of the devices in the on-demand
service environment 800 may be implemented on the same physical
device or on different hardware. Some devices may be implemented
using hardware or a combination of hardware and software. Thus,
terms such as "data processing apparatus," "machine," "server" and
"device" as used herein are not limited to a single hardware
device, but rather include any hardware and software configured to
provide the described functionality.
[0079] The cloud 804 is intended to refer to a data network or
plurality of data networks, often including the Internet. Client
machines located in the cloud 804 may communicate with the
on-demand service environment to access services provided by the
on-demand service environment. For example, client machines may
access the on-demand service environment to retrieve, store, edit,
and/or process information.
[0080] In some embodiments, the edge routers 808 and 812 route
packets between the cloud 804 and other components of the on-demand
service environment 800. The edge routers 808 and 812 may employ
the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). The BGP is the core routing
protocol of the Internet. The edge routers 808 and 812 may maintain
a table of IP networks or `prefixes` which designate network
reachability among autonomous systems on the Internet.
[0081] In one or more embodiments, the firewall 816 may protect the
inner components of the on-demand service environment 800 from
Internet traffic. The firewall 816 may block, permit, or deny
access to the inner components of the on-demand service environment
800 based upon a set of rules and other criteria. The firewall 816
may act as one or more of a packet filter, an application gateway,
a stateful filter, a proxy server, or any other type of
firewall.
[0082] In some embodiments, the core switches 820 and 824 are
high-capacity switches that transfer packets within the on-demand
service environment 800. The core switches 820 and 824 may be
configured as network bridges that quickly route data between
different components within the on-demand service environment. In
some embodiments, the use of two or more core switches 820 and 824
may provide redundancy and/or reduced latency.
[0083] In some embodiments, the pods 840 and 844 may perform the
core data processing and service functions provided by the
on-demand service environment. Each pod may include various types
of hardware and/or software computing resources. An example of the
pod architecture is discussed in greater detail with reference to
FIG. 8B.
[0084] In some embodiments, communication between the pods 840 and
844 may be conducted via the pod switches 832 and 836. The pod
switches 832 and 836 may facilitate communication between the pods
840 and 844 and client machines located in the cloud 804, for
example via core switches 820 and 824. Also, the pod switches 832
and 836 may facilitate communication between the pods 840 and 844
and the database storage 856.
[0085] In some embodiments, the load balancer 828 may distribute
workload between the pods 840 and 844. Balancing the on-demand
service requests between the pods may assist in improving the use
of resources, increasing throughput, reducing response times,
and/or reducing overhead. The load balancer 828 may include
multilayer switches to analyze and forward traffic.
[0086] In some embodiments, access to the database storage 856 may
be guarded by a database firewall 848. The database firewall 848
may act as a computer application firewall operating at the
database application layer of a protocol stack. The database
firewall 848 may protect the database storage 856 from application
attacks such as structure query language (SQL) injection, database
rootkits, and unauthorized information disclosure.
[0087] In some embodiments, the database firewall 848 may include a
host using one or more forms of reverse proxy services to proxy
traffic before passing it to a gateway router. The database
firewall 848 may inspect the contents of database traffic and block
certain content or database requests. The database firewall 848 may
work on the SQL application level atop the TCP/IP stack, managing
applications' connection to the database or SQL management
interfaces as well as intercepting and enforcing packets traveling
to or from a database network or application interface.
[0088] In some embodiments, communication with the database storage
system 856 may be conducted via the database switch 852. The
multi-tenant database system 856 may include more than one hardware
and/or software components for handling database queries.
Accordingly, the database switch 852 may direct database queries
transmitted by other components of the on-demand service
environment (e.g., the pods 840 and 844) to the correct components
within the database storage system 856. In some embodiments, the
database storage system 856 is an on-demand database system shared
by many different organizations. The on-demand database system may
employ a multi-tenant approach, a virtualized approach, or any
other type of database approach. An on-demand database system is
discussed in greater detail with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10.
[0089] FIG. 8B shows a system diagram illustrating the architecture
of the pod 844, in accordance with one embodiment. The pod 844 may
be used to render services to a user of the on-demand service
environment 800. In some embodiments, each pod may include a
variety of servers and/or other systems. The pod 844 includes one
or more content batch servers 864, content search servers 868,
query servers 872, file force servers 876, access control system
(ACS) servers 880, batch servers 884, and app servers 888. Also,
the pod 844 includes database instances 890, quick file systems
(QFS) 892, and indexers 894. In one or more embodiments, some or
all communication between the servers in the pod 844 may be
transmitted via the switch 836.
[0090] In some embodiments, the application servers 888 may include
a hardware and/or software framework dedicated to the execution of
procedures (e.g., programs, routines, scripts) for supporting the
construction of applications provided by the on-demand service
environment 800 via the pod 844. Some such procedures may include
operations for providing the services described herein. The content
batch servers 864 may request internal to the pod. These requests
may be long-running and/or not tied to a particular customer. For
example, the content batch servers 864 may handle requests related
to log mining, cleanup work, and maintenance tasks.
[0091] The content search servers 868 may provide query and indexer
functions. For example, the functions provided by the content
search servers 868 may allow users to search through content stored
in the on-demand service environment. The Fileforce servers 876 may
manage requests information stored in the Fileforce storage 878.
The Fileforce storage 878 may store information such as documents,
images, and basic large objects (BLOBs). By managing requests for
information using the Fileforce servers 876, the image footprint on
the database may be reduced.
[0092] The query servers 872 may be used to retrieve information
from one or more file systems. For example, the query system 872
may receive requests for information from the app servers 888 and
then transmit information queries to the NFS 896 located outside
the pod. The pod 844 may share a database instance 890 configured
as a multi-tenant environment in which different organizations
share access to the same database. Additionally, services rendered
by the pod 844 may require various hardware and/or software
resources. In some embodiments, the ACS servers 880 may control
access to data, hardware resources, or software resources.
[0093] In some embodiments, the batch servers 884 may process batch
jobs, which are used to run tasks at specified times. Thus, the
batch servers 884 may transmit instructions to other servers, such
as the app servers 888, to trigger the batch jobs. For some
embodiments, the QFS 892 may be an open source file system
available from Sun Microsystems.RTM. of Santa Clara, Calif. The QFS
may serve as a rapid-access file system for storing and accessing
information available within the pod 844. The QFS 892 may support
some volume management capabilities, allowing many disks to be
grouped together into a file system. File system metadata can be
kept on a separate set of disks, which may be useful for streaming
applications where long disk seeks cannot be tolerated. Thus, the
QFS system may communicate with one or more content search servers
868 and/or indexers 894 to identify, retrieve, move, and/or update
data stored in the network file systems 896 and/or other storage
systems.
[0094] In some embodiments, one or more query servers 872 may
communicate with the NFS 896 to retrieve and/or update information
stored outside of the pod 844. The NFS 896 may allow servers
located in the pod 844 to access information to access files over a
network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed. In
some embodiments, queries from the query servers 822 may be
transmitted to the NFS 896 via the load balancer 820, which may
distribute resource requests over various resources available in
the on-demand service environment. The NFS 896 may also communicate
with the QFS 892 to update the information stored on the NFS 896
and/or to provide information to the QFS 892 for use by servers
located within the pod 844.
[0095] In some embodiments, the pod may include one or more
database instances 890. The database instance 890 may transmit
information to the QFS 892. When information is transmitted to the
QFS, it may be available for use by servers within the pod 844
without requiring an additional database call. In some embodiments,
database information may be transmitted to the indexer 894. Indexer
894 may provide an index of information available in the database
890 and/or QFS 892. The index information may be provided to file
force servers 876 and/or the QFS 892.
[0096] FIG. 9 shows a block diagram of an environment 910 wherein
an on-demand database service might be used, in accordance with
some embodiments. Environment 910 includes an on-demand database
service 916. User system 912 may be any machine or system that is
used by a user to access a database user system. For example, any
of user systems 912 can be a handheld computing system, a mobile
phone, a laptop computer, a work station, and/or a network of
computing systems. As illustrated in FIGS. 9 and 10, user systems
912 might interact via a network 914 with the on-demand database
service 916.
[0097] An on-demand database service, such as system 916, is a
database system that is made available to outside users that do not
need to necessarily be concerned with building and/or maintaining
the database system, but instead may be available for their use
when the users need the database system (e.g., on the demand of the
users). Some on-demand database services may store information from
one or more tenants stored into tables of a common database image
to form a multi-tenant database system (MTS). Accordingly,
"on-demand database service 916" and "system 916" will be used
interchangeably herein. A database image may include one or more
database objects. A relational database management system (RDBMS)
or the equivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information
against the database object(s). Application platform 918 may be a
framework that allows the applications of system 916 to run, such
as the hardware and/or software, e.g., the operating system. In an
implementation, on-demand database service 916 may include an
application platform 918 that enables creation, managing and
executing one or more applications developed by the provider of the
on-demand database service, users accessing the on-demand database
service via user systems 912, or third party application developers
accessing the on-demand database service via user systems 912.
[0098] One arrangement for elements of system 916 is shown in FIG.
9, including a network interface 920, application platform 918,
tenant data storage 922 for tenant data 923, system data storage
924 for system data 925 accessible to system 916 and possibly
multiple tenants, program code 926 for implementing various
functions of system 916, and a process space 928 for executing MTS
system processes and tenant-specific processes, such as running
applications as part of an application hosting service. Additional
processes that may execute on system 916 include database indexing
processes.
[0099] The users of user systems 912 may differ in their respective
capacities, and the capacity of a particular user system 912 might
be entirely determined by permissions (permission levels) for the
current user. For example, where a call center agent is using a
particular user system 912 to interact with system 916, the user
system 912 has the capacities allotted to that call center agent.
However, while an administrator is using that user system to
interact with system 916, that user system has the capacities
allotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical role
model, users at one permission level may have access to
applications, data, and database information accessible by a lower
permission level user, but may not have access to certain
applications, database information, and data accessible by a user
at a higher permission level. Thus, different users may have
different capabilities with regard to accessing and modifying
application and database information, depending on a user's
security or permission level.
[0100] Network 914 is any network or combination of networks of
devices that communicate with one another. For example, network 914
can be any one or any combination of a LAN (local area network),
WAN (wide area network), telephone network, wireless network,
point-to-point network, star network, token ring network, hub
network, or other appropriate configuration. As the most common
type of computer network in current use is a TCP/IP (Transfer
Control Protocol and Internet Protocol) network (e.g., the
Internet), that network will be used in many of the examples
herein. However, it should be understood that the networks used in
some embodiments are not so limited, although TCP/IP is a
frequently implemented protocol.
[0101] User systems 912 might communicate with system 916 using
TCP/IP and, at a higher network level, use other common Internet
protocols to communicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an
example where HTTP is used, user system 912 might include an HTTP
client commonly referred to as a "browser" for sending and
receiving HTTP messages to and from an HTTP server at system 916.
Such an HTTP server might be implemented as the sole network
interface between system 916 and network 914, but other techniques
might be used as well or instead. In some embodiments, the
interface between system 916 and network 914 includes load sharing
functionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to
balance loads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a
plurality of servers. At least as for the users that are accessing
that server, each of the plurality of servers has access to the
MTS' data; however, other alternative configurations may be used
instead.
[0102] In some embodiments, system 916, shown in FIG. 9, implements
a web-based customer relationship management (CRM) system. For
example, in some embodiments, system 916 includes application
servers configured to implement and execute CRM software
applications as well as provide related data, code, forms, web
pages and other information to and from user systems 912 and to
store to, and retrieve from, a database system related data,
objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system, data for
multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical database
object, however, tenant data typically is arranged so that data of
one tenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so
that one tenant does not have access to another tenant's data,
unless such data is expressly shared. In certain embodiments,
system 916 implements applications other than, or in addition to, a
CRM application. For example, system 916 may provide tenant access
to multiple hosted (standard and custom) applications. User (or
third party developer) applications, which may or may not include
CRM, may be supported by the application platform 918, which
manages creation, storage of the applications into one or more
database objects and executing of the applications in a virtual
machine in the process space of the system 916.
[0103] Each user system 912 could include a desktop personal
computer, workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless
access protocol (WAP) enabled device or any other computing system
capable of interfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or
other network connection. User system 912 typically runs an HTTP
client, e.g., a browsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet
Explorer.RTM. browser, Mozilla's Firefox.RTM. browser, Opera's
browser, or a WAP-enabled browser in the case of a cell phone, PDA
or other wireless device, or the like, allowing a user (e.g.,
subscriber of the multi-tenant database system) of user system 912
to access, process and view information, pages and applications
available to it from system 916 over network 914.
[0104] Each user system 912 also typically includes one or more
user interface devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball,
touch pad, touch screen, pen or the like, for interacting with a
graphical user interface (GUI) provided by the browser on a display
(e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, etc.) in conjunction with
pages, forms, applications and other information provided by system
916 or other systems or servers. For example, the user interface
device can be used to access data and applications hosted by system
916, and to perform searches on stored data, and otherwise allow a
user to interact with various GUI pages that may be presented to a
user. As discussed above, embodiments are suitable for use with the
Internet, which refers to a specific global internetwork of
networks. However, it should be understood that other networks can
be used instead of the Internet, such as an intranet, an extranet,
a virtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network, any
LAN or WAN or the like.
[0105] According to some embodiments, each user system 912 and all
of its components are operator configurable using applications,
such as a browser, including computer code run using a central
processing unit such as an Intel Pentium.RTM. processor or the
like. Similarly, system 916 (and additional instances of an MTS,
where more than one is present) and all of their components might
be operator configurable using application(s) including computer
code to run using a central processing unit such as processor
system 917, which may include an Intel Pentium.RTM. processor or
the like, and/or multiple processor units.
[0106] A computer program product implementation includes a
machine-readable storage medium (media) having instructions stored
thereon/in which can be used to program a computer to perform any
of the processes of the embodiments described herein. Computer code
for operating and configuring system 916 to intercommunicate and to
process web pages, applications and other data and media content as
described herein are preferably downloaded and stored on a hard
disk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof, may also be
stored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory medium or
device, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on any media capable of
storing program code, such as any type of rotating media including
floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk (DVD), compact
disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or
optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any
type of media or device suitable for storing instructions and/or
data. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof,
may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over a
transmission medium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another
server, or transmitted over any other conventional network
connection (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communication
medium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.).
It will also be appreciated that computer code for implementing
embodiments can be implemented in any programming language that can
be executed on a client system and/or server or server system such
as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language, Java.TM.,
JavaScript.RTM., ActiveX.RTM., any other scripting language, such
as VBScript, and many other programming languages as are well known
may be used. (Java.TM. is a trademark of Sun Microsystems.RTM.,
Inc.).
[0107] According to some embodiments, each system 916 is configured
to provide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content
to user (client) systems 912 to support the access by user systems
912 as tenants of system 916. As such, system 916 provides security
mechanisms to keep each tenant's data separate unless the data is
shared. If more than one MTS is used, they may be located in close
proximity to one another (e.g., in a server farm located in a
single building or campus), or they may be distributed at locations
remote from one another (e.g., one or more servers located in city
A and one or more servers located in city B). As used herein, each
MTS could include logically and/or physically connected servers
distributed locally or across one or more geographic locations.
Additionally, the term "server" is meant to include a computing
system, including processing hardware and process space(s), and an
associated storage system and database application (e.g., OODBMS or
RDBMS) as is well known in the art.
[0108] It should also be understood that "server system" and
"server" are often used interchangeably herein. Similarly, the
database object described herein can be implemented as single
databases, a distributed database, a collection of distributed
databases, a database with redundant online or offline backups or
other redundancies, etc., and might include a distributed database
or storage network and associated processing intelligence.
[0109] FIG. 10 also shows a block diagram of environment 910
further illustrating system 916 and various interconnections, in
accordance with some embodiments. FIG. 10 shows that user system
912 may include processor system 912A, memory system 912B, input
system 912C, and output system 912D. FIG. 10 shows network 914 and
system 916. FIG. 10 also shows that system 916 may include tenant
data storage 922, tenant data 923, system data storage 924, system
data 925, User Interface (UI) 1030, Application Program Interface
(API) 1032, PL/SOQL 1034, save routines 1036, application setup
mechanism 1038, applications servers 10001-1000N, system process
space 1002, tenant process spaces 1004, tenant management process
space 1010, tenant storage area 1012, user storage 1014, and
application metadata 1016. In other embodiments, environment 910
may not have the same elements as those listed above and/or may
have other elements instead of, or in addition to, those listed
above.
[0110] User system 912, network 914, system 916, tenant data
storage 922, and system data storage 924 were discussed above in
FIG. 9. Regarding user system 912, processor system 912A may be any
combination of processors. Memory system 912B may be any
combination of one or more memory devices, short term, and/or long
term memory. Input system 912C may be any combination of input
devices, such as keyboards, mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras,
and/or interfaces to networks. Output system 912D may be any
combination of output devices, such as monitors, printers, and/or
interfaces to networks. As shown by FIG. 10, system 916 may include
a network interface 920 (of FIG. 9) implemented as a set of HTTP
application servers 1000, an application platform 918, tenant data
storage 922, and system data storage 924. Also shown is system
process space 1002, including individual tenant process spaces 1004
and a tenant management process space 1010. Each application server
1000 may be configured to tenant data storage 922 and the tenant
data 923 therein, and system data storage 924 and the system data
925 therein to serve requests of user systems 912. The tenant data
923 might be divided into individual tenant storage areas 1012,
which can be either a physical arrangement and/or a logical
arrangement of data. Within each tenant storage area 1012, user
storage 1014 and application metadata 1016 might be similarly
allocated for each user. For example, a copy of a user's most
recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage 1014.
Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is a
tenant might be stored to tenant storage area 1012. A UI 1030
provides a user interface and an API 1032 provides an application
programmer interface to system 916 resident processes to users
and/or developers at user systems 912. The tenant data and the
system data may be stored in various databases, such as Oracle.TM.
databases.
[0111] Application platform 918 includes an application setup
mechanism 1038 that supports application developers' creation and
management of applications, which may be saved as metadata into
tenant data storage 922 by save routines 1036 for execution by
subscribers as tenant process spaces 1004 managed by tenant
management process 1010 for example. Invocations to such
applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 34 that provides a
programming language style interface extension to API 1032. A
detailed description of some PL/SOQL language embodiments is
discussed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478, titled
METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA
A MULTI-TENANT ON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, filed
Sep. 21, 2007, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its
entirety and for all purposes. Invocations to applications may be
detected by system processes, which manage retrieving application
metadata 1016 for the subscriber making the invocation and
executing the metadata as an application in a virtual machine.
[0112] Each application server 1000 may be communicably coupled to
database systems, e.g., having access to system data 925 and tenant
data 923, via a different network connection. For example, one
application server 10001 might be coupled via the network 914
(e.g., the Internet), another application server 1000N-1 might be
coupled via a direct network link, and another application server
1000N might be coupled by yet a different network connection.
Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) are
typical protocols for communicating between application servers
1000 and the database system. However, other transport protocols
may be used to optimize the system depending on the network
interconnect used.
[0113] In certain embodiments, each application server 1000 is
configured to handle requests for any user associated with any
organization that is a tenant. Because it is desirable to be able
to add and remove application servers from the server pool at any
time for any reason, there is preferably no server affinity for a
user and/or organization to a specific application server 1000. In
some embodiments, therefore, an interface system implementing a
load balancing function (e.g., an F5 Big-IP load balancer) is
communicably coupled between the application servers 1000 and the
user systems 912 to distribute requests to the application servers
1000. In some embodiments, the load balancer uses a least
connections algorithm to route user requests to the application
servers 1000. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as
round robin and observed response time, also can be used. For
example, in certain embodiments, three consecutive requests from
the same user could hit three different application servers 1000,
and three requests from different users could hit the same
application server 1000. In this manner, system 916 is
multi-tenant, wherein system 916 handles storage of, and access to,
different objects, data and applications across disparate users and
organizations.
[0114] As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that
employs a sales force where each call center agent uses system 916
to manage their sales process. Thus, a user might maintain contact
data, leads data, customer follow-up data, performance data, goals
and progress data, etc., all applicable to that user's personal
sales process (e.g., in tenant data storage 922). In an example of
a MTS arrangement, since all of the data and the applications to
access, view, modify, report, transmit, calculate, etc., can be
maintained and accessed by a user system having nothing more than
network access, the user can manage his or her sales efforts and
cycles from any of many different user systems. For example, if a
call center agent is visiting a customer and the customer has
Internet access in their lobby, the call center agent can obtain
critical updates as to that customer while waiting for the customer
to arrive in the lobby.
[0115] While each user's data might be separate from other users'
data regardless of the employers of each user, some data might be
organization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users
or all of the users for a given organization that is a tenant.
Thus, there might be some data structures managed by system 916
that are allocated at the tenant level while other data structures
might be managed at the user level. Because an MTS might support
multiple tenants including possible competitors, the MTS should
have security protocols that keep data, applications, and
application use separate. Also, because many tenants may opt for
access to an MTS rather than maintain their own system, redundancy,
up-time, and backup are additional functions that may be
implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data and
tenant specific data, system 916 might also maintain system level
data usable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level
data might include industry reports, news, postings, and the like
that are sharable among tenants.
[0116] In certain embodiments, user systems 912 (which may be
client machines/systems) communicate with application servers 1000
to request and update system-level and tenant-level data from
system 916 that may require sending one or more queries to tenant
data storage 922 and/or system data storage 924. System 916 (e.g.,
an application server 1000 in system 916) automatically generates
one or more SQL statements (e.g., SQL queries) that are designed to
access the desired information. System data storage 924 may
generate query plans to access the requested data from the
database.
[0117] Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of
objects, such as a set of logical tables, containing data fitted
into predefined categories. A "table" is one representation of a
data object, and may be used herein to simplify the conceptual
description of objects and custom objects according to some
embodiments. It should be understood that "table" and "object" may
be used interchangeably herein. Each table generally contains one
or more data categories logically arranged as columns or fields in
a viewable schema. Each row or record of a table contains an
instance of data for each category defined by the fields. For
example, a CRM database may include a table that describes a
customer with fields for basic contact information such as name,
address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table might
describe a purchase order, including fields for information such as
customer, product, sale price, date, etc. In some multi-tenant
database systems, standard entity tables might be provided for use
by all tenants. For CRM database applications, such standard
entities might include tables for account, contact, lead, and
opportunity data, each containing pre-defined fields. It should be
understood that the word "entity" may also be used interchangeably
herein with "object" and "table".
[0118] In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be
allowed to create and store custom objects, or they may be allowed
to customize standard entities or objects, for example by creating
custom fields for standard objects, including custom index fields.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,779,039, titled CUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELDS IN A
MULTI-TENANT DATABASE SYSTEM, by Weissman, et al., and which is
hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for all
purposes, teaches systems and methods for creating custom objects
as well as customizing standard objects in a multi-tenant database
system. In some embodiments, for example, all custom entity data
rows are stored in a single multi-tenant physical table, which may
contain multiple logical tables per organization. In some
embodiments, multiple "tables" for a single customer may actually
be stored in one large table and/or in the same table as the data
of other customers.
[0119] These and other aspects of the disclosure may be implemented
by various types of hardware, software, firmware, etc. For example,
some features of the disclosure may be implemented, at least in
part, by machine-program product that include program instructions,
state information, etc., for performing various operations
described herein. Examples of program instructions include both
machine code, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing
higher-level code that may be executed by the computer using an
interpreter. Examples of machine-program product include, but are
not limited to, magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks,
and magnetic tape; optical media such as CD-ROM disks;
magneto-optical media; and hardware devices that are specially
configured to store and perform program instructions, such as
read-only memory devices ("ROM") and random access memory
("RAM").
[0120] While one or more embodiments and techniques are described
with reference to an implementation in which a service cloud
console is implemented in a system having an application server
providing a front end for an on-demand database service capable of
supporting multiple tenants, the one or more embodiments and
techniques are not limited to multi-tenant databases nor deployment
on application servers. Embodiments may be practiced using other
database architectures, i.e., ORACLE.RTM., DB2.RTM. by IBM and the
like without departing from the scope of the embodiments
claimed.
[0121] Any of the above embodiments may be used alone or together
with one another in any combination. Although various embodiments
may have been motivated by various deficiencies with the prior art,
which may be discussed or alluded to in one or more places in the
specification, the embodiments do not necessarily address any of
these deficiencies. In other words, different embodiments may
address different deficiencies that may be discussed in the
specification. Some embodiments may only partially address some
deficiencies or just one deficiency that may be discussed in the
specification, and some embodiments may not address any of these
deficiencies.
[0122] While various embodiments have been described herein, it
should be understood that they have been presented by way of
example only, and not limitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of
the present application should not be limited by any of the
embodiments described herein, but should be defined only in
accordance with the following and later-submitted claims and their
equivalents.
* * * * *